MLB Daily Fantasy Helper: Thursday 4/13/17

The beauty of daily fantasy baseball is that the top targets are different each and every day. Whether it's the right-handed catcher who destroys left-handed pitching or the mid-range hurler facing a depleted lineup, you're not going to find yourself using the same assets time after time.

While this breaks up the monotony, it can make it hard to decide which players are primed to succeed on a given day. We can help bridge that gap.

In addition to our custom optimal lineups, you can check out our batting and pitching heat maps, which show the pieces in the best spot to succeed on that slate. Put on the finishing touches with our games and lineups page to see who's hitting where and what the weather looks like, and you'll have yourself a snazzy looking team to put up some big point totals. We've also got our Solo Shot Podcast, which breaks down the MLB daily fantasy slate each day. Here's today's episode.

If you need help getting started on that trek, here are some of the top options on the board today. We'll be focusing exclusively on the main slate beginning at 7 pm Eastern.

Pitchers to Target

High-Priced Pitcher

Madison Bumgarner ($11,300 on FanDuel): There is only one absolute on this slate: you need to bump with Madison Bumgarner. No pitcher can tickle his floor, and he likely has the best ceiling, too. Just plug him in and build from there. Bumgarner has a 2.78 SIERA with a 26.2% strikeout rate and 3.3% walk rate over his first two starts, one of which came against an Arizona Diamondbacks team that thrashes lefties. The opposing Colorado Rockies do not. They were 25th in wRC+ against lefties last year and had a 22.9% strikeout rate, so just lock in Bumgarner and go from there.

Value Pitchers